United States or Vietnam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In Puvis de Chavannes they appear in a wholly novel combination; his classicism is absolutely unacademic, his romanticism unreal beyond the verge of mysticism, and so preoccupied with visions that he may almost be called a man for whom the actual world does not exist in the converse of Gautier's phrase. His distinction is wholly personal.
Truly the brush has plastered that back as a trowel might, and the result reminds one of stone and mortar, as Millet's execution reminds one of mud-pie making. The handicraft is as barbarous in Chavannes as it is in Millet, and we think of them more as great poets working in a not wholly sympathetic and, in their hands, somewhat rebellious material.
Here his love for everything bearing on the study of nature was confirmed. Professor Chavannes, Director of the Cantonal Museum, in whom he found not only an interesting teacher, but a friend who sympathized with his favorite tastes, possessed the only collection of Natural History in the Canton de Vaud. To this Agassiz now had access. His uncle, Dr.
"Well, Mademoiselle Valerie de Chatenoeuf," began Monsieur, as soon as the gentlemen had left us, "is it because you have found out that you have got a handsome brother, that you are determined to drive all other handsome young men au desespoir? or is it that you wish to break the heart especially of this pauvre Monsieur de Chavannes, that you have treated us all with an air si hautaine, si hautaine, that if you had been the Queen of France, it could not have been colder?"
The law-business was expedited with all speed by Charles Selwyn; Madame Bathurst, the Jervises, the Gironacs, and the Selwyns were alone present at the wedding, and, though we were all dear friends, there was no affectation of tears or lamentable partings; for we knew that in heaven's pleasure, we should all meet again within a few months, as, after our wedding tour was ended, Monsieur de Chavannes proposed to take up his abode in England, the land of his choice, as of his education.
Chavannes is as an epic poet whose theme is the rude grandeur of the primeval world, and who sang his rough narrative to a few chords struck on a sparely-stringed harp that his own hands have fashioned.
What further atrocity the ruffian was about to utter, I know not, for while his odious voice was yet hissing in my ear these atrocious epithets, before the footman who was standing, as I have said, a few yards off at the other side of the carriage, had time to interfere, I heard the sound of a horse at full gallop, and, the next instant, he was dragged forcibly away, and I saw him quivering in the furious grasp of the Count de Chavannes, who had, it seems, been returning to join us, when the assault was committed.
About the middle of the century there emerged from the older schools two others which may be called the Realist and Idealist, and indeed there were those to whom both these terms could be applied, both methods being united in their remarkable works. Of the Realists Corot and Courbet are distinguished, as were Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau among the Idealists.
That Puvis de Chavannes was not an unfeeling Bonze of art, but a man of tender heart and warm affections was proved after the death of his much-loved Princess Marie Cantacuzene. Two months later sorrow over her loss killed him. He had painted the thousand and one expressive moments in the life of our species as a hymn to humanity, and their contours are eternal. Eternal?
I told her, in reply, all that I knew, and that you know, gentle reader, about the Count de Chavannes. "Et puis? Et puis?" asked Adele, laughing. "Et puis, nothing at all," I answered. "No secrets among friends, Valerie," said Adele, looking me earnestly in the face; "I had none with you, and you helped me with your advice. Be as frank, at least, with me, if you love me."
Word Of The Day